For the fewer than 10,000 people of Lyon County (in far northwest Iowa), the Iowa Racing & Gaming Commission's decision to accept applications for new casino licenses for the first time since 2005 was life-changing.
"This is so huge that no one can appreciate how important this would be to our growth," said Jeff Gallagher, president of the Lyon County Riverboat Foundation. "We think that the casino, through the resort, through the golf course, through the convention center, is going to reshape life in Lyon County. ... We're just terribly excited about what can happen over the next 10 years."
Two recent studies concluded that Lyon County is the most compelling site for a new casino, with high incremental impact and low cannibalization.
But Sioux City Mayor Mike Hobart urged the Iowa Racing & Gaming Commission not to award Lyon County that casino license because of its projected impact on that city's Argosy Casino.
A solid majority of Lyon County voters in September gave their approval for a $90-million casino and resort to be built on farmland in northwest Iowa, about eight miles from Sioux Falls. The proposal by Kehl Management of Riverside calls for a complex featuring a casino with 800 slot machines and 24 gaming tables. It would include a 100-room resort, a 1,200-seat event center, and an 18-hole golf course. The complex would hire 400 employees, would be built in 2010, and would open in 2011.
Several dozen backers of the Lyon County casino donned matching green T-shirts and hopped on a bus for a five-hour ride for the possibility of a new casino in their community. Lyon County is one of five counties where voters have approved referendums and hope to be granted a casino license; the others are Wapello, Webster, Franklin, and Tama counties. They weren't disappointed.
"It is time to accept new applications," Iowa Racing & Gaming Commission Chair Greg Seyfer of Cedar Rapids announced at about 10:30 a.m. Thursday, two hours after the meeting started and also after a full hour of public comments from stakeholders. "We will be fair; we will be open; we will listen; we will consider everyone and anyone who comes forward with an application."
Applications will be due October 1. But Thursday's approval came with warnings from members of the five-member state commission, made up of three Democratic women and two Republican men.
"There is some marginal benefit of adding new casinos although as a state, we are approaching a saturation point," said commission member Paul Hayes of Urbandale, who's president of JSC Properties in Des Moines. "Any new casino will have a negative impact on other license-holders in the state - in some cases, potentially a very devastating impact."
That means granting new casino licenses will be a more complicated process than it has been in the past, Hayes said. He advised applicants to be creative in addressing this concern and minimizing the impact to other casinos. "It is not my wish to grant any new license that will put another license-holder out of business," he said.
Iowa currently has 20 casinos with more than 20,000 slot machines, along with table games such as poker, blackjack, craps, and roulette. The state also offers bingo, a lottery, and wagering at a horse track in Altoona and at greyhound tracks in Council Bluffs and Dubuque.
Iowa Senators Continue to Play Key Roles in Health-Care-Reform Legislation
The push for health-care reform in Congress has accelerated this month, with President Barack Obama asking the House and Senate to pass bills out of their respective chambers before adjourning for the month-long August recess.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions Committee - where Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) plays a critical role - completed its work on Wednesday, passing its legislation out of the panel on a party-line vote, with Democrats unanimously supporting the bill and all Republicans opposing.
The bill includes more than 160 Republican amendments accepted during the month-long markup, one of the longest in congressional history.
Meanwhile, closed-door negotiations continue in the Senate Finance Committee, where Senator Chuck Grassley (D-Iowa), the panel's top Republican, continues to work with Chair Max Baucus (D-Montana) to reach agreement on a broad bipartisan bill.
"The White House ... may send a message or [Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid] may send a message to him to just forget this bipartisanship stuff. We need to move ahead," Grassley said Wednesday, during his weekly conference call with Iowa reporters. "Now, I hope that they don't do that. ... I think it's going to make the public very skeptical if we have a partisan health-reform bill."
Grassley said he is opposed to a U.S. House version of health-care legislation that includes a tax increase, saying it would hit small businesses hard. Observers increasingly say Grassley's role in the health-care-reform debate is key for passage of the legislation.
Legislation introduced in the U.S. House included a controversial public-health-insurance option. U.S. Representative Bruce Braley (D-Iowa) called that bill encouraging but said he's concerned it doesn't do enough for Medicare reimbursements.
According to Pete Jeffries of Iowa, national campaign consultant for Divided We Fail, Iowans - like Americans nationwide - are focused on reducing the cost of health-care services while maintaining or improving quality.
Jeffries, in Washington this week to try to determine where the negotiations are headed, said his conversations with Republicans have led him to believe that the Democratic House leadership is going to push through a bill to its liking regardless of any backlash from conservative Democrats. However, he said there is hope that the Senate discussions might result in a bill that is truly bipartisan.
Ag Department Proposes Work-Hour Reduction
The Iowa Department of Agriculture has proposed reducing the work hours for all of its 400 employees by four hours for each two-week pay period as a way to deal with its 15-percent budget cut this fiscal year - a move that's led AFSCME officials to file a grievance expected to go before an arbitrator in August.
If the plan is not approved in arbitration, significantly more layoffs will be required, Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey said.
So far, the agriculture department has sent two layoff notices and terminated one employee during the person's initial six-month probationary period. Positions have also been left open since November, resulting in 26 vacant positions that will not be filled, or 7 percent of the department's authorized full-time employees.
Other cost-saving measures include being more flexible in accommodating employees who want to take voluntary time off without pay, limiting out-of-state travel, cuts in program spending, and altering cell-phone contracts to reduce costs.
The department's $22-million Fiscal Year 2009 budget was cut by $755,000, or 3.4 percent. It was then cut an additional 12 percent to $18.7 million in Fiscal Year 2010. The agency has also been affected by step increases in employee salaries, increased insurance costs, and reductions in federal grants.
A lot of state agencies are initiating the same sorts of cost-saving measures as the Department of Agriculture, but there haven't been any widespread layoffs or furloughs yet, said Robert Bailey, spokesperson for the Iowa Department of Administrative Services.
"No other departments have submitted any sort of furlough plan," Bailey said this week. "To do true furloughs, they have to devise a plan, and it has to be approved by human resources and the Department of Administrative Services."
Bailey pointed out that the agriculture department is not calling its proposed reduction in hours a "furlough," although he noted that the difference is minor. He said that because of the grievance filed by the union, it's uncertain whether the reduction in hours will happen.
GOP Gubernatorial Field Still Growing
At least six Iowa Republicans will vie for the right to challenge Democratic Governor Chet Culver in the November 2010 election, with at least four others still considering a run, according to IowaPolitics.com interviews with 14 potential Republican gubernatorial candidates.
Among those contacted, four had formed exploratory committees, two were leaning toward running and will be filing paperwork soon, four were still thinking about it, three are leaning against it, and one had decided against it. Two others, former Senate President Jeff Lamberti and ethanol executive Bruce Rastetter, did not return multiple phone calls.
Recent new developments on the Republican side include exploratory-committee paperwork filed by Senate Minority Leader Paul McKinley and Cedar Rapids businessman Christian Fong, and Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey's decision to run for a second term rather than running for governor. The six Republican candidates who have filed papers or plan to file soon are McKinley, Fong, Bob Vander Plaats, Representative Christopher Rants, Representative Rod Roberts, and Senator Jerry Behn.
On the Democratic side, Culver named veteran Democratic campaign consultant Teresa Vilmain as senior adviser to his 2010 re-election campaign. Vilmain, a Cedar Falls native, was chief consultant to campaigns for Governor Tom Vilsack and later was Hillary Clinton's Iowa-caucus campaign director.
Culver is not likely to face a primary this time around, but former state Representative Ed Fallon (D-Des Moines) used his "I'M for Iowa" newsletter to publicly declare that Culver is "in deep trouble," has been snubbing party activists, and could lose re-election next year.
"Few leading Iowa Democrats will admit it publicly, but Governor Culver is in deep trouble," said Fallon, who lost to Culver in the Democratic primary for governor in 2006. "If something doesn't change, and soon, he could be the first incumbent Iowa governor ousted from office since Norman Erbe lost to Harold Hughes in 1962."
Iowa's Economic Struggle Continue
The national recession is continuing to affect Iowa, as new statistics show a jump in bankruptcies and in the state jobless rate, which hit a 22-year high in June.
Bankruptcies in Iowa were sharply higher in the first six months of 2009 compared to the same period in the previous year.
Federal court records show nearly 5,000 Iowa consumers and businesses filed for bankruptcy protection from January through June 2009. That's up nearly 27 percent from the 3,899 who filed for bankruptcy protection during the first six months of 2008.
Among businesses alone, bankruptcy filings jumped by more than 51 percent in the first six months of 2009 compared to the previous year.
And new numbers from Iowa Workforce Development show the state's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate reached 6.2 percent in June as a result of continued layoffs and recent graduates entering the job market.
That's up from a revised rate of 5.7 percent in May, and a rate of 4.1 percent a year ago. However, Iowa's jobless rate remains lower than the U.S. unemployment rate of 9.5 percent for June.
"The June labor market numbers depict the effects of a severe and lingering recession on the Iowa economy," said Elisabeth Buck, director of Iowa Workforce Development. "Iowa followed the national trend in June with its steepest job cuts occurring in construction, manufacturing, and professional and business services."
The number of unemployed persons climbed to 104,100 in June, the highest level reported since February 1986. The June estimate compares with 95,800 for May, and 68,400 for June 2008.
This weekly summary comes from IowaPolitics.com, an online government and politics news service. IowaPolitics.com staff contributed to this report.
